


Players

by Raynidreams



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-15
Updated: 2011-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-23 18:39:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/253643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara 1st person POV.<br/>Setting: Season 1, Flesh and Bone.  After Laura has ordered Kara to get him cleaned up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Players

I'm almost trembling as I limp back into the room in which he's being held.

I hate feeling this way.  This unsure.  I can avoid doubt like sickness through a placebo of drink and men, but when it comes back in an flood like this, it just swallows me.  And I’ve had weeks of doubt.  Weeks lying in a hospital bed, reassured and yet not easy about my secret, the biggest regret in the frak load that make up my life, having finally been exposed to the Old Man.  

Shit!

There’s no time for this now.  Can’t think about Adama.  Can’t think about Lee.  Can't think about the billions of other things I've screwed up in the past.  I’ve a job to do.  A job I’m frakkin’ up right at this very moment.

Gods the president… her face.  

And the frakkin’ cylon... Leoben, his expression now.

He’s just watching me as I sit down at the table once.  Watching as I wince at the pull of my thigh.  I nod to the guards to wipe his face down and tidy up his clothes, but they seem reluctant.  They were happy enough to touch him when I ordered them to smack the crap of him but they can't stand the idea of tidying him up afterwards.  Cowards.  Cursing I take the cloth from them and move around the table unsteadily.  

I feel bone weary and exhausted as I shift.  I can't imagine how he feels.  

And he's like this due to me.  
   
Damn it.  Keep it together Starbuck.  Just a little while longer.

I feel like swearing some more as I near him for the marines' reluctance seems infectious and I become loathe to touch him too.  As though wary of coming too close.  My throat still hurts from his grip so I suppose it's not an unrealistic reaction.  I refuse to show him that shudder of apprehension and smirk instead, wetting the cloth in the silver bowl.  

His eyes seem to lock in on my neck as I do, and it immediately makes me want to clean myself there from how intently he stares.  I know I've wiped away the finger marks he left in blood but still I have to take a breath against the rising picture I imagine of how they are stained into my skin; a smeared tattooed pattern of the bruised muscle beneath.  

Clearing my throat, I begin to wipe his cuts down, starting with his forehead.

After a moment, he closes his eyes as if enjoying the sensation.  Frakker.  I press harder and he yelps.  Then smiles up at me tenderly.

Sick frakker.

How did he know all that crap about my mother?  I’ve never told anyone.  Not even Zak.  But this machine comes out with it like it’s a clear as water to him about what she did to me.  My knuckles flare with a phantom pain and I have to flex them before continuing to clean a cut by the side of his mouth.  I can feel his warm breath running over my skin.

Don’t let him get in your head, just like the Commander said.  Leoben’s a clever cylon... I know this.  I've seen it.  He’s probably just read something in your frakked up gaze that screams 'screwed up kid'.  And possibly, he's seen that I’ve no fear of him, on the surface anyway, so I’ve no fear of men, and that just leaves…

I hate my contradictory doubting inner voice when it whispers to me once more…

But what he knows is too personal.  Too involved.

 _Like a cancer that needs to be removed…_

He can’t know those things… he just can’t.

“What are you thinking Starbuck?” his voice intrudes and I jump, my hand touching his face.  He feels hot and damp.  Real.

“I’m thinking that there’s no bomb.”

He grins at me, showing all his strong teeth and seemingly unaware of the pull of skin over his cuts.

“There’s always a bomb Kara.  There’s one inside every one of us, just waiting to go off.”

“Very cute,” I bite back. 

There’s something so wrong about him, but something so familiar at the same time.  I could have sworn I’d met him before… but then maybe I have? Seeing as there’s so many of them.  And what’s that he said?  Aside from his rehashing of scripture – about the players changing all the time?  About us being here before…

His chains clink loudly as he shifts closer and I jolt back.  Damn him.  Then he sinks away passive, relaxing into the chair.  I hate this, because from his contented smile, you’d think that he was the one in control and me the one who’d been tortured.

I drop the rag back into the bowl of water and nod to the guards to lift him up.

At the door, he struggles in their arms and looks back at me while I follow more slowly.  

"Thank you Kara.  For everything," he says, and for the first time his voice does not sound pleased, nor preaching... just sincere.

What am I supposed to do with that?


End file.
